


Diamond Mine

by donniedont



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 08:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donniedont/pseuds/donniedont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barnaby is a robot.  Too bad Maverick made sure he'd never find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamond Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for duties on Tumblr for the Tiger & Bunny Secret Valentine Exchange. She wanted a fic that runs with the theory of Barnaby being a robot, along with the concepts of Maverick manipulating his information to ensure that he wasn't aware and a healthy amount of Saito. 
> 
> Title is from a song by Hop Along of the same name. It's the song that made me figure out what direction I wanted to go with while writing this!

Barnaby Brooks Jr. is twenty-three years old when he surfaces as the latest Hero for Apollon Media.  He starts out of the gate nearly stumbling over his new partner, but wow.  A life-or-death match with a terrorist can really boost anybody’s capacity to play well with others.

 

*

 

            He’s a package deal.  At least, that’s what the media determines him as.  He’s attractive and apparently a boon for female viewers between the ages of 12-18. 

 

            He’s approached after he completes a mission or shopping at the mall or trying to purchase toiletries.  The culprits are typically bright-eyed young girls with glossy lips that nearly throw their journals at him, begging for his signature.

 

            He asks for their names and signs, realizing that with every flick of his wrist he is achieving a short-term dream for someone that feels as if they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this moment. 

 

            It’s an affirmation he doesn’t feel that he has a right to, but he’ll proceed.  Some people wait for their celebrity crush to sign their name in ink.  Others wait for their parent’s convicted murderer to be identified and swallowed up by a helicopter explosion.

 

*

 

            Barnaby Brooks Jr. is four years old when his parents are murdered by a man he can’t quite get the face of.

 

            The fire is put out, the face is identified, but the fire still finds a way reignite when he closes his eyes at night.

 

*

 

            Barnaby meets Kotetsu as he falls into his arms, probably en route to a back breaking fall.

 

            He has Kotetsu in his arms many more times.  He’s not about to fall to his potential death, and they’re certainly not on the job.

 

            Barnaby is not sure if it’s love as he lays his partner down on the bed.

 

            He’s not sure if he can love as he straddles him and tugs on his studded tie.

 

            But he’s certain that he loves when Kotetsu flips him over and grinds his hips against his.

 

*

 

            Barnaby pieces together Kotetsu’s past through pillow talk.  When Barnaby is about to fall asleep, he hears details that can only be kept between them and the high thread-count sheets of either of their beds.  He learns that Tomoe wore glasses and Kotetsu teased her mercilessly about them.  He learns that Kotetsu holds resentment toward his mother for being able to see his daughter as much as she does.  He learns that he is in love with Barnaby so much that he takes off his ring sometimes when they’re having sex.

 

            “I could fall in love with you,” Barnaby determines.  Because he certainly could.  He knew too many beautiful, broken memories of such a beautiful, broken man to question that.

 

            “I’m glad to hear that, Bunny,” Kotetsu says, his amber eyes closing as he twists around to fit against him.

 

*

 

            Barnaby doesn’t get hurt, because he’s a fighter.  At least, that’s what he’s always assumed.  But as Kotetsu complains about his armor not preventing himself from being bruised from being tossed around, he wonders.

 

            “Perhaps you can find a way to upgrade Kotetsu’s armor to be as durable as mine?” Barnaby asks Saito after chasing some thief down several blocks.

 

            Saito moves his mouth in a way that Barnaby is positive can’t be read by even the most expert of lip readers.  It takes several times before Saito finally says “I think I can look into it.”

 

*

 

            Kotetsu says “when we live together” accidentally as they’re removing their undersuits after a chase.  He stumbles into a corner of the van and hides.

 

            Barnaby has never said he loved him, but it feels close enough.  If it’s good enough for Kotetsu, it’s good enough for him.

 

            “That could happen,” Barnaby tells him, “Once you learn to take the trash out.”

 

            Kotetsu reappears from the corner absolutely beaming.

 

*

 

            Kotetsu is Wild Tiger until he’s a murderer until he’s begging Barnaby to remember a time in which he was Bunny and he was Kotetsu and they were the best team ever.

 

            He’s told that Maverick, the man that has been taking him in all these years, has gone inside his mind and twisted it around just enough to almost demolish the closest thing to love he’s ever had.

 

            It’s a rough ride to the final battle, but he knows that Kotetsu will forgive him if they save the day.

 

*

 

            Fighting H-01 is horrifying, but having the vessels shoot from the floor with other copies is even worse.  They come out with their dark armor glinting, red lasers focused in his general area.

 

            “Unfortunately, you destroyed the other copy’s face before we could reveal it,” Maverick notes.

 

            Barnaby grips his fist and feels any chance of breath escape his mouth as all of them removed their masks, exposing a reflection of his own blond hair and green eyes.

 

            “Ah, Barnaby,” Maverick sighs, “You were such an important piece of this puzzle… the early prototype.  An achievement in so many ways...”

 

            There is shrieking on all sides.  The tones are colliding and he can’t tell which voice is whose.

 

            “…but what good is a robot that has the similar emotional patterns of any NEXT?”

 

            Barnaby joins in the chorus of screams and hopes that it will all be over soon.

 

*

 

            The big reveal is when they’re facing twenty versions of himself, but the big reaction is Kotetsu watching as Barnaby enters the recovery room, still in his undersuit.

 

            Kotetsu’s eyes are murky and Barnaby assumes it’s because of the painkillers until Kotetsu is sobbing.  His heart rate monitor is rising higher and higher as he throws his face into his knees and wails.

 

            He stands there, knowing that if it was two weeks ago, he could place his hand on Kotetsu’s back and whisper just the right things to make him calm down.

 

            “You have some nerve showing up here,” Kotetsu hisses, his heavy and cracking with every syllable.  He wipes his eyes and adds, “Oh, wait.  I forgot.  You don’t _have_ nerves.”

 

            It feels like a cheap shot.  But at least he isn’t sobbing anymore.

 

            When Barnaby reaches for the door he hears “I fell in love with something that could never love me back.”

 

            He wants to assume that he’s hearing things, but he now understands that his form ensures that he can’t make those types of human errors.

 

*

 

            Saito passes flash drives and tries his best to not scream into the mic as he sits Barnaby down and explains to him what has happened. 

 

            “I had this conversation with you before,” Saito utters, his voice almost at a stable level of sound.  “I’ve had this conversation with you _many times_ before.”

 

            Barnaby flips the tiny drives between his fingers and slowly nods his head.  “But I don’t remember them.”

 

            Saito runs his hand down Barnaby’s arm.  “The beauty of the suit was that we could easily hide any damage your outer shell sustained.  Maverick would delete any memory files about being hurt and then replace them with new ones.  He’d… manipulate Kotetsu’s memories if necessary.”

 

            Barnaby closed his eyes and for the first time he didn’t see any embers of fire.  “So who was Barnaby Brooks Jr.?”

 

            Saito pulls up a police file with a picture of a child, as well as the familiar faces of what he was told were his parents.  “He was the son of Barnaby and Emily Brooks.  But he was shot and killed when he walked in on the murder scene.”

 

*

 

            It’s not that he’s disappointed about being a robot.  It’s not even that he’s capable of feeling anything about it, really.  Which would be a relief, if he had the ability to comprehend that.  But he knows that all he will ever be is wayward technology that went farther than he ever was expected to.

 

            He doesn’t bother contacting the rest of the Heroes and certainly doesn’t call Kotetsu.  So he retreats to the only person that can really understand him.

 

            Saito.

 

*

 

            There are certainly benefits to being a robot.  If one could call them that.  There’s no illness.  No necessary food intake.  No need to travel for necessary items only to be cornered by every twelve year old in Sternbild.

 

            But his apartment is lonely without Kotetsu near.

 

            He learns a new trick after spending enough weeks with Saito.  It’s that he can delete files manually from himself.

 

            The first one he purges is the sound bite of Kotetsu’s sobs from the last time he saw him.

 

*

 

            It’s been several months since Barnaby is aware that he’s a robot. Saito is knee-deep in coding when Barnaby tells him “I don’t want to be upgraded anymore.”

 

            Saito tilts his head and promptly turns on his mic before he shrieks, “ _But you’ll degrade if you don’t get your updates!_ ”

 

            Barnaby tugs on his wires before he says, “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

 

*

 

            He spends the next year selling his possessions and writing checks to Saito as payment for letting him decay in the privacy of his lab.

 

            The first few months encompass the realization that he finally felt like a machine.  He wanders through the lab, taking things in slower than he ever did before.  He lets go of memories, both real and fake.  Gone were his parents.  Gone were the flames.  Gone was the way that the spotlights felt when he was announced as a member of the Hero lineup.

 

            But every item deleted from his mind was just another part eased up to fill with Kotetsu.  The way that he had a crooked smile aimed at him no matter what.  The way that he flipped Barnaby across the bed to grind his hips against him.  The times that neither of them knew that their relationship was just very clever circuitry.

 

            Saito passes the time running diagnostics, covering his face when the computer screens vomit numbers that only he can understand.  “We can still clean you up,” he whispers, not even bothering to turn the speaker on.  “I don’t know if I can recover everything, but I can have you moving again.”

 

            Barnaby laughs, remembering that he hasn’t been able to move on his own for at least three months.  Mobility didn’t seem to matter when he was stuck inside a lab.  He processes Saito’s statement, attempting to piece characters together before he says, “Not… necessary.  Thanks.”

 

            “I don’t think you’ll be able to last the night,” Saito notes.

 

            “The date?” Barnaby asks.

 

            Saito points at the garland hanging from the edge of his desk.  “It’s Christmas!”

 

            Barnaby grins.  “I died.  He died.  This day.”

 

            Saito removes the speaker on his head and presses himself up against Barnaby’s form.  He takes a remote and switches on the of the computer screens to Hero TV. 

 

            It appears that a culprit of some assortment has been captured and the camera pans out to a small clump of Heroes.

 

            “That’s why Ben went out…” Saito notes.

 

            Barnaby does not understand who Ben is, but when he looks at the screen all he sees is Kotetsu charging into danger.  Kotetsu facing himself against the culprit.  Kotetsu falling through the glass ceiling of a car dealership.

 

            Barnaby reaches out for a body that will never fall into his arms again.

 

*

 

            Barnaby deletes as many files as he can until he can no longer see.

 

            He replays Kotetsu’s crooked smile until he shuts down for good.


End file.
